The Pull of the Stars: A Novel

Published right on the cusp of the worldwide COVID-19 lockdown, The Pull of the Stars is a historical novel by Irish author Emma Donoghue set during the Spanish Flu of 1918. Its descriptions of pandemic life, down to the period-accurate public health slogans posted in the streets of Dublin, like “COVER UP EACH COUGH OR SNEEZE…FOOLS AND TRAITORS SPREAD DISEASE” (Donoghue), resonated with readers and reviewers. The story follows nurse Julia Power over the course of 3 days, providing a window into her work in a maternity ward of a Dublin hospital, as she tends to expectant mothers infected with influenza. On the first day, a young assistant, Bridie Sweeney, joins her and helps her with menial tasks around the ward. Cheerful, good with patients and willing to learn, Bridie soon earns Julia’s affection and picks up the basics of nursing from Julia. Also helping Julia with the medical procedures is Dr. Kathleen Lynn, an experienced doctor and a member of Sinn Féin, the Irish democratic socialist party. The three women work together to save their patients and deliver their patients’ babies, leading to moments of great disappointment and grief but also some of hard-fought triumph. Towards the end of the story, love briefly blooms between Bridie and Julia, but it proves to be doomed as Bridie contracts the flu and succumbs to it.

Donoghue’s descriptive prowess and extensive historical research bring the scenes in the ward to life in all their authenticity, illustrating the poor ward conditions and primitive medical technology during the 1910s, which prompts lockdown readers in 2020 to reflect on advances in healthcare in the pandemic of their generation, and the problems that remain. The highly limited space in the maternity ward is reminiscent of overloaded healthcare systems and the lack of personal protective gear for medical staff in many parts of the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, which highlights that decades of medical advances still cannot fully prepare us for the outbreak of a new disease. Julia’s character conveys a powerful message about coping with the consequences of a lethal pandemic amid an environment that puts her face to face with so much death, by finding confidence, hope and love in her colleagues and patients. Finally, a sentiment from the story that rings equally true for the characters fighting against the Spanish Flu and readers in the age of COVID-19 is acceptance towards the tough, unprecedented circumstances they lived through. “The human race settles on terms with every plague in the end, the doctor told her. Or a stalemate, at the least. We somehow muddle along, sharing the earth with each new form of life” (Donoghue).